He found the prince lying unconscious on the ground.
Outside of his cell there was a sand-pit, in which some of the Portuguese came to dig sand every morning to scatter over the floor of the stables after they had been cleaned out. A tiny glimmer of light in this part of the wall showed dom Fernando that a stone was loose, and might with a little patience be moved away. It was hard work for one so weak; still, it gave him something to do and to look forward to, and prevented him, sitting all day in his prison, from wondering why no answer to his letter had ever come, and if his brothers had forgotten him altogether, little knowing that out of mere spite Lazuraque had kept back everything they had written. When these thoughts came into his head he worked away at the stone harder than ever, to deaden the pain which was almost too bad to bear. At last one day his efforts were rewarded, and he was able to take the stone in and out and speak to his fellow-captives, who, with sun and air about them, were more fortunate than he.
Perhaps he may have heard from them (for outside a gaol news flies quickly) that ever since Duarte's death his wife had given great trouble to dom Pedro by interfering in matters of government, and that civil war had actually broken out in Portugal, though happily it was soon put an end to by the flight of the queen. The expenses entailed by all this would, Fernando understood, have prevented the raising of the large ransom required; and with the lightening of his despair at his apparent abandonment came suspicions of Lazuraque. It was so much easier and happier for him to believe that the vizier, whose cruelty he knew, should be playing some trick on him than that Pedro should have left him to die without a word.
We cannot tell how it really happened, and why the money used by dom Enrique ('the Navigator' as he was called) in fitting out exploring expeditions was not employed in setting free the brother who had been made captive through Enrique's own folly. Certain it is that fifty thousand doubloons were all the Portuguese would offer, and now Lazuraque demanded four hundred thousand! This Fernando learnt after fifteen months of waiting, and then his last remnant of hope flickered out.
When hope was gone he had nothing left to live for, and on June 1, 1443, he was too weak even to kneel at his prayers. In vain did his companions implore that he might be moved to a larger, healthier room; the vizier refused all their petitions, and if he had granted them, most likely it would have been too late. However, the prince's physician obtained leave to see him, and his chaplain and secretary watched by him alternately, so that he was not left alone in his last moments.
Four days passed in this manner, and on the morning of June 5 he awoke looking happier than he had done since he bade farewell to the shores of Portugal five years before.
'I have seen in a vision,' he said to his confessor, 'the archangel Michael and Saint John entreating the Blessed Virgin to have pity on me and put an end to my sufferings. And she smiled down on me, and told me that to-day the gates of heaven should be thrown open, and I should enter.' So saying he begged to confess his sins, and when this was done he turned on his side and whispered, 'Now let me die in peace,' and with the last rays of the sun he was free.